Syria rebels take Palestinian camp

From: AAP

November 26, 2012

SYRIAN rebels have seized the training camp of a pro-regime Palestinian faction in Damascus province and taken control of an arms depot after fierce clashes, a watchdog says.

"Rebels stormed a Popular Front-General Command (PFLP-GC) training camp in the Rihan area of Damascus province, after violent clashes with local fighters," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.

It said the rebels took full control of the camp after launching an attack on Saturday, with casualties suffered on both sides, including among the families of a number of the Palestinian militants.

Separately, rebels took over an arms depot after several days of fighting in Deir Suleiman, also in Damascus province, seizing weapons and ammunition, the Observatory said.

The training camp "functioned for over 30 years as a base of resistance, graduating thousands of Palestinian youth and hundreds of guerrillas who have humiliated the Zionist enemy with important operations," the PFLP-GC said in a statement condemning the attack on Saturday.

State news agency SANA quoted an official as saying that the attack was "carried out by armed terrorist groups ... Mossad proxies working for the Zionist enemy in response to operations carried out by the Front against Tel Aviv".

The PFLP-GC on Wednesday claimed responsibility for a Tel Aviv bus bombing in which 29 Israelis were wounded.

"Our guerrilla cells in the heart of Palestine managed to bomb one of the city buses in Tel Aviv and send a strong message to the leaders of the enemy that committing massacres against our civilians will not pass without punishment," it said.

The Israeli internal security service, Shin Bet, arrested members of a cell accused of the bombing on Thursday, allegedly "associated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad". It said that the men had recruited an Israeli national to carry out the attack.

In early November, the PFLP-GC fought alongside loyalist troops against rebels in Yarmuk in southern Damascus, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.

Activists said other Palestinian factions fought with the rebels.

The PFLP-GC is headed by Ahmad Jibril, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad, who has been fighting an unprecedented revolt against his regime that began as a peaceful uprising in March 2011.